Motor Cars

See how the dedicated workers at Jaguar Cars assemble one of the first aluminium production cars to be made - the XK8.

After a brief and inspiring look into Jaguar's museum, where some of the world's oldest and most beautiful cars are enjoying a highly polished retirement, we visit one of the best appointed pressing plants ever made. Huge sheets of aluminium are crushed into the lovely curving shapes for which Jaguar Cars are world-renowned. From there they go to be welded, bolted, and riveted together by great jigs under robotic control. In a matter of minutes a fine new body takes shape, ready for painting.

The paint shop is a dust and hair free zone in which more robots are hard at work, spraying colours of choice onto each metal body as it passes through. The paint is baked on in a huge oven, and polished by hand just as soon as it has cooled down enough to touch.

The tens of thousands of parts needed to make cars have been pre-assembled into engines, dashboards, wheels, seats, and heaven knows what. They are wheeled in, welded up, screwed together, glued, and bolted into position by people and machines working in perfect coordination and harmony. Every car is custom made to order and is the result of a small miracle of organization.

All along the line, which is dotted with hundreds of specialized teams and workstations, great care is taken not to dent the bodies or scratch the paint - accidents here can be very expensive indeed!

Every ten minutes or so, another beautiful car rolls off the line. It is subjected to hundreds of tests. Only after passing them all will it be driven off to the dispatch area. From here it could go to any one of the four corners of the Earth - the best of British manufacturing, succeeding at last under the firm control of a very clever and wealthy Indian.